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but I don't encourage Turbine by wasting my money buying tickets to play the festival games that used to be free until they got even greedier than ever and capped how often you could play them, UNLESS YOU PAY TO PLAY WHAT USED TO BE FREE!

How is giving you 2 tickets every one hour less than 4 tickets every two hour? How are they giving you less for free than they used to? Oh.. they're not.

Look, anyone who's read my posts here knows I'm certainly no Turbine apologist. I also find it tacky that they allow people to pay money to play these more than other people who don't.. but I did my arguing over that last year when this was introduced. But it's simply wrong to prevent false information.

When I first joined this game a couple years ago, I used to think that the festivals were something to take away from the grind of leveling. A fun getaway for the players. It annoys me that they have destroyed the fun aspects of recent festivals by implementing cool downs and mithril coin resets. For me it started with the killing of the Snow Ball Fight. I pay for 3 subscriptions (family) and have been giving thought to no longer playing the game when the next expansion comes out. The trend has been sadly in the direction of micro-transactions and way too much pay to win.

It annoys me that they have destroyed the fun aspects of recent festivals by implementing cool downs and mithril coin resets.

This is just getting silly. The cooldowns for these races existed before the game went f2p. People have some bad memories around here. For other games in other festivals.. sure.. valid complaints there.

edit: due to someone else elsewhere finally explaining the situation in full, as I understand it you no longer obtain tickets to then turn in to the race. So whilst the claims that Turbine is keeping you from playing the races for free as much as they used to are simply wrong, I completely agree that the removal of tickets, so that you can no longer gather them up and play at your leisure and instead replacing them with a quest that has a 1hr cd with the options to unlock with coins.. is a very, very uncool move by Turbine.

I don't remember if the race tokens were account bound or not but you're simply wrong with saying we got two tokens per race per hour.

Yep, you're right. But--it was trivial to get 2 or 4 (from the two vendors) whenever you thought about it, and then devote some time to it later, with a number of them in hand.

In any case, you always could pop in and do two in a row. And if you wanted to pop to the other NPC (can you tell I'm a hunter?) you could do two right away AGAIN.

Now, you can do one in each location per hour. Period. If you don't see that as a huge difference in the way it plays out, I don't know what to tell you. It is. Does stopping what you're doing every hour to do one race sound like something you want to do?

Yeah, mathematically it still translates to 2 every two hours, like before--the difference being now the wait is ALWAYS 1 hour between them, whereas before, you could ALWAYS do 2 at each location right away (or 4 at one location right away) and stockpile coins and use the coins at either race. Getting 2 (or 4) at a time, using tokens from both races at either race, coupled with the ability to save the tokens and use them later--there's just no comparison to the "race once, wait an hour, race once, wait an hour, race once, wait an hour..." setup as it exists now.

And..the fact that the tokens could be used on either race before is an extra big factor if you're doing the deeds, like I am. For instance, since the dwarves were bugged last year, I finished the hobbits part of the deed (pick each racer to win successfully THREE times each) but not them. So---I only want to do the dwarves this time. Last year, I could use my 2 tokens from BOTH locations at the dwarf races. This year, the hobbiton race is useless to me. It wouldn't have been in this situation last year--kind of a big deal to me right now.

F2P has nothing to do with it, it's all about the greed. That is why turbine went F2P to begin with. They can make a bigger profit off F2P then subs.

Greed is such a horrible choice of wording to use. Firstly they're a business and the sole point of a business is to make as much money as possible and regardless of how you feel about an individual company they are all trying to beat their customers. Some will do it with a smile and others will do it with the figurative gun to the head, but it's hard to fault a business for doing what a business does. If you don't like the practice being used you just simply don't support it. It's also difficult to really term it as greed seeing as we don't really know how much excess LotRO turns out. Would you still call them greedy if they were making just above operating costs? If they're hovering around the projections WB sets for them?

But, this would have been one of the (many?) opportunities for Turbine to throw their VIP's a bone. I doubt the revenue lost from what I'm assuming is a rather small minority of their player base would have done any actual damage. if anything it may have encouraged a few more subscribers. One day Turbine will hopefully be willing to make their "VIP's" feel a bit more important with nice gestures rather then portrait frames.

Some companies are certainly greedier than others, even if they all are out to make a profit.

Companies that focus on getting cash in the short-term through off-putting, customer unfriendly tactics versus companies that accept smaller immediate returns in the interest of long-term cash-flow from satisfied customers are what we're talking about here.

Turbine seems to have adopted the former strategy, and it has the appearance of get-what-you-can-while-you-can greed.

You're right--we don't know their internal situation--we can only go by appearances. And from those appearances, they seem increasingly more interested in the quick buck rather than the long term happy customer.

Some companies are certainly greedier than others, even if they all are out to make a profit.

Companies that focus on getting cash in the short-term through off-putting, customer unfriendly tactics versus companies that accept smaller immediate returns in the interest of long-term cash-flow from satisfied customers are what we're talking about here.

Turbine seems to have adopted the former strategy, and it has the appearance of get-what-you-can-while-you-can greed.

You're right--we don't know their internal situation--we can only go by appearances. And from those appearances, they seem increasingly more interested in the quick buck rather than the long term happy customer.

What's causing it to be defined as greed though rather then a common business strategy? Companies raise prices, slash payroll, cut corners, add fees, strip benefits, etc, all the time in order to increase revenue and/or decrease expenditures and for whatever the reason only the affected parties view it as greed while the rest either shrug it off or applaud it. Do you think a Turbine employee views a move like this as greed or a move which helps ensure he/she has a secure job and steady pay? This whole thing about greed in the corporate world is a very thin, very subjective line. Certainly the practice is clearly visible and as I said if you don't like it obviously the best solution is not to support it, I'm not doing the Summerfest this year. But saying it's driven by greed on Turbine/WB's part? Meh.

I couldn't agree with you more. I stopped my VIP after a year as it is just not worth it in my opinion. VIPs should actually be treated like VIPs. VIPs should be able to do quests that can be reset with Mithril Coins 2-3 times a day before they have to pay anything.

It is shocking how bad VIPs are treated at the moment. They should not have the same restrictions as everyone else.

Unless you play in the Moors or are leveling alts, there really is no incentive to be VIP once your character is level capped. And it's cheaper to just buy all the quests packs anyway.

Sadly I didn't renew my subscription after two years as a VIP. There just aren't enough perks in being a subscriber and I've also been upset with the game for the last several months now. There are just too many problems with gameplay that they won't fix (or took forever to fix) and I'm upset with some of the choices they've made (apparel dummies, hobbit slot machine, how the new content/raids turned out). The thing is I want to be a VIP, I really do, but it's just not worth it at this point.

My favorite part of the game used to be the festivals and I haven't even done anything with the summer festival yet. This nickel and diming started last summer, around the time of the farmer's fair I think. The absolute worst was what they did with the snowball fight. I'm trying to understand these choices from a business perspective but I'm just not getting it. It seems like it's actually driving people away not keeping them.

What's causing it to be defined as greed though rather then a common business strategy? Companies raise prices, slash payroll, cut corners, add fees, strip benefits, etc, all the time in order to increase revenue and/or decrease expenditures and for whatever the reason only the affected parties view it as greed while the rest either shrug it off or applaud it. Do you think a Turbine employee views a move like this as greed or a move which helps ensure he/she has a secure job and steady pay? This whole thing about greed in the corporate world is a very thin, very subjective line. Certainly the practice is clearly visible and as I said if you don't like it obviously the best solution is not to support it, I'm not doing the Summerfest this year. But saying it's driven by greed on Turbine/WB's part? Meh.

I find it hard to understand why think you corporations are not greedy. That's what capitalism is: greed. Capitalism works on exploitation of the worker and the customer. The majority of corporations are greedy. If they could charge 1000% more for their products, they would if they thought people would pay it. Corporations do not care about the customer, only profit. That is why people tend to prefer smaller companies as they are often more human and pricing decisions etc are often made by people who live in the real world, not some exec on a 7 figure salary who wants to make the share holders even more millions so he can get his bonus. Look at what New Line Cinema (owned by WB) did with Peter Jackon. One of the reasons The Hobbit movies took so long to start production was because Peter Jackson had to sue New Line as they were lying about The Lord of the Rings movie profits so they could pay him less.

These festival quests with an hour cooldown are greed pure and simple. Enough of us need to complain about this in the hope they stop this practice as it just causes bad feeling. Festivals are supposed to be a celebration and make us feel good about the game, not anger us.

I love this game and find it upsetting when Turbine do things like this this as it is just so incongruent. They get so much right and then one thing like this makes you fume.

Now, you can do one in each location per hour. Period. If you don't see that as a huge difference in the way it plays out, I don't know what to tell you. It is. Does stopping what you're doing every hour to do one race sound like something you want to do?

Did you even bother reading my other post? You know, the one that is directly above your post? The one that was there in its entirety for over an hour before you posted? Maybe you should....

It was not made clear by those complaining that the ticket system had been removed and I even said I've not done any of the summer festival this year so obviously wouldn't know exactly how it was working this year. It just kept being said "We get one race per hour" whilst never mentioning that you could no longer just gather tickets and then race later (seriously one big facepalm for holding back that piece of information.. So once I found out that extremely important piece of information I already said that yes, this change is a very bad one by Turbine. That is a valid complaint. But saying Turbine has reduced the number of races you get for free isn't. But again, I agree this change is a bad and greedy change.

Let's be honest here, no matter which way you look at it, Turbine has effectively killed festivals as social events. A couple of years ago they were like a big party, players hung out at them having a good time. Now they are greed driven money-sinks and a grind where players come, grind for the cosmetics they want and then leave, grateful to have managed to get what they want and not have to grind anymore! (A bit of a general statement, but essentially true for an awful lot of players)

I find it hard to understand why think you corporations are not greedy. That's what capitalism is: greed. Capitalism works on exploitation of the worker and the customer.

This is where you're wrong. Though it is true that there are people who take advantage of capitalism and use it to be greedy, it itself is not a greedy process. It's much better than this whole fairness thing going around where everyone is judging corporations by how much they make, not taking into account facts, then taking from them based on what others think. The bigger the company the more overhead there is to pay for. People getting million dollar bonuses? so what. What about someone catching a football making multi-millions? Does that bother you?

There is greed out there, this is a fact. I'm sure you could show me examples, but capitalism is not a bad thing. That is just a 'trendy-thought' going around to get people voting a certain way. Turbine has to please as many as possible, to make money without losing all it's customers. It's a balancing act and sometimes they get it wrong.

I still love this festival in general, but I wonder how successful this strategy actually is for bringing additional revenue to Turbine. Are there really that many people who are spending enough money on resets?

I might have suggested the approach of festivals totally mithril-free with a wide variety of creative and tempting old and new account-bound rewards. Too many for most players to get everything, but never fear--a couple months later the store offers a selection of desirable fluff. While you're there picking up the festival dress, you realize you need that wardrobe upgrade to make room for it, and wait, wouldn't that store-exclusive head piece look lovely with it? Everyone enjoys the festival for what it is and everyone gets to choose their favorite rewards and either wait until next year to grab the rest or pick up a few more things in the store. Money still gets spent, but people are happier about it.

Instead they present something that requires transactions for some folks to play the way they want to, offer lackluster new rewards (though the old ones are truly awesome, must give them credit), and just generally give the feel of 'meh, been there, can pass this year' for a lot of people. A missed opportunity, perhaps.

Greed is such a horrible choice of wording to use. Firstly they're a business and the sole point of a business is to make as much money as possible and regardless of how you feel about an individual company they are all trying to beat their customers. Some will do it with a smile and others will do it with the figurative gun to the head, but it's hard to fault a business for doing what a business does. If you don't like the practice being used you just simply don't support it. It's also difficult to really term it as greed seeing as we don't really know how much excess LotRO turns out. Would you still call them greedy if they were making just above operating costs? If they're hovering around the projections WB sets for them?

But, this would have been one of the (many?) opportunities for Turbine to throw their VIP's a bone. I doubt the revenue lost from what I'm assuming is a rather small minority of their player base would have done any actual damage. if anything it may have encouraged a few more subscribers. One day Turbine will hopefully be willing to make their "VIP's" feel a bit more important with nice gestures rather then portrait frames.

There is a difference between making a profit and milking your customers for every dime you can get out of them to pay for your condo in Bermuda

In the past, I always thought the developers were brilliant with using the festivals to 'stealth' players into buying stuff and game upgrades. it was so easy to gather tons of new cosmetics, costumes, consumables that a player ungrudgingly bought inventory, houses and storage upgrades to hold all this new loot. While browsing the stores for the upgrades one could see more cosmetics that might go with the new festival stuff and you would spend more cash in the store to do that.

it was a fun idea that made the game enjoyable and the come on sales seemed natural and fitting. i used to feel that the festivals were a gift

for a new player its much more intense. they dangle all these lovely new decorations, and fluff but make it so they have to pay money upfront to get them' in time. it leaves the player feeling 'cheated' and tired of having to redo certain actions over and over in order to gain the items.

the festivals have lost that fun aspect, that generous "thank you for playing our game- here are some great cosmetics for you to enjoy"- feeling.

Hour Cooldowns a horrid change

People last year are talking about the races being unlocked by festival tickets, but I think people do forget that 2 years ago there was no cooldown on the races at all besides the inherent 9 minutes between races. That is what made it a party on top of the hill at Hobbiton or in the snow in Thorin's Hall. People could hang out and at least try to get the deeds done with a 25% chance each race. Now you only have a 25% chance each race only instead of having about 6 chances an hour as the norm, now you have to pay about $4/hour for the privilege that was how the mini-game was supposed to work in the first place. I personally would never spend mithril coins on a sheer bet, which this is, and by the tone of this thread no one else is either. The races are designed to be almost the equivalent of shrew stomping, in the sense of being infinitely repeatable. They at least never changed that for spring festival and only mentioned mithril coins at the flower gathering quest, which I did not find intrusive if somebody wanted to turn around and do that again. I do not think anyone really had any problems at the spring festival since it was little changed from years past.

Mithril coins can have their place in the festival. I would say that the fishing quests can be reset for 5 mithril coins each day. Depending on luck you will get more or less fish, but at least there is a guarantee of a return for money invested.

People last year are talking about the races being unlocked by festival tickets, but I think people do forget that 2 years ago there was no cooldown on the races at all besides the inherent 9 minutes between races. That is what made it a party on top of the hill at Hobbiton or in the snow in Thorin's Hall. People could hang out and at least try to get the deeds done with a 25% chance each race. Now you only have a 25% chance each race only instead of having about 6 chances an hour as the norm, now you have to pay about $4/hour for the privilege that was how the mini-game was supposed to work in the first place. I personally would never spend mithril coins on a sheer bet, which this is, and by the tone of this thread no one else is either. The races are designed to be almost the equivalent of shrew stomping, in the sense of being infinitely repeatable. They at least never changed that for spring festival and only mentioned mithril coins at the flower gathering quest, which I did not find intrusive if somebody wanted to turn around and do that again. I do not think anyone really had any problems at the spring festival since it was little changed from years past.

Mithril coins can have their place in the festival. I would say that the fishing quests can be reset for 5 mithril coins each day. Depending on luck you will get more or less fish, but at least there is a guarantee of a return for money invested.

^^^^^ This is precisely my beef right now since I did not participate last year. The last time I played in the Summer Festival was two years ago and at that time, as you point out, everybody was hanging out on the hill above Bag Eng and we had a blast between and during races. Same at Thorin's as they were outside and did not have a cd either. Fast forward to this year and not only are they locked up inside an instance but on a cd and tied up to mithril coins. Rrrreally not happy about these changes to say the least and most polite thing about it. I fail to see any reasons for these changes other than obvious money grabs.

I hate the constant reminder that my time in the game could always be made better by shelling out. It taints the fluid, beautiful, engrossing world that the original developers created, and I wish I wasn't so bitter about that. I miss the feeling that I used to have when I logged into this game and never wanted to leave...

By the Gods! This x 1,000!

Apart from logging in after each patch (to see what they broke while adding more &&&& to the Store) and to pay upkeep on my house I haven't logged in to "play" since Hobbit-Slot-Machines went live.

They were just the latest, very poorly implemented, way to gouge every last penny out of players who were once happy to spend money on this truly great game.

I was once a three-month rolling subber, who was happy to buy extra TP now and then for the stuff I wanted. Now I don't even play.

Long-term happy customers spend money.

Make a great product that people want to play and they'll be happy to spend that monthly sub.

Make them feel like they are getting gouged for every last penny for even the most trivial of "social event" things and they'll walk away.

Now, instead of the developers making business decisions that make us want to stay, they add in mechanics to make us want to pay, all the while saying that they are just "convenience" services. That is such a misleading term when you alter the original experience to be less convenient AFTER the F2P launch.

Instead of trying to make us happy, they turn it into a chore where we need to buy our own positive ingame experience. I hate the constant reminder that my time in the game could always be made better by shelling out. It taints the fluid, beautiful, engrossing world that the original developers created, and I wish I wasn't so bitter about that.

Well, Turbine have gone "deliver as little as possible for as much as possible" since FTP.

Yes, Lotro has beautiful world (older zones ONLY), but there is always Store alert waiting for you or bug.
Soon skills will be only for TPs, VIPs points per month will be removed and of course we will have to learn our class with each update instead of bringing good content. (I think HD will be worst xpac ever, worse than RoR and i cannot understand why some jerks tell that RoR is best xpac.)

Let's be honest here, no matter which way you look at it, Turbine has effectively killed festivals as social events. A couple of years ago they were like a big party, players hung out at them having a good time. Now they are greed driven money-sinks and a grind where players come, grind for the cosmetics they want and then leave, grateful to have managed to get what they want and not have to grind anymore! (A bit of a general statement, but essentially true for an awful lot of players)

Have to agree with this statement 100%.

This is exactly how I have done the festival this year. I have got my cosmetics and now no longer participate in the events.

I think back the amazing Weatherstock event 2 weekends ago. An incredible social event of hundreds of players, and it didn't cost us one TP or Mithril coin to enjoy. This was put in place by PLAYERS. For crying out loud, Turbine should be doing these kinds of things as well for the players.

I understand Turbine has to make profit, but the wonderful atmosphere in-game, which existed in the beginning (I have been here since Beta) is no longer there. You can take the need for profit too far.

Not familiar with these races. So they used to be on a 3-minute cooldown, but now they have been changed to a 1-hour cooldown with the option to pay real money in the form of Mithril Coins to reset the quest as often as you'd like?

And Turbine didnt heard the playerbase and keep the races in a 1hour CD, festivals were supposed to be great server wide party, now they're just a money grabber grind for ugly tablecloth mounts and horribad robes. I dont know why i'm still surprised...

"[...] I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend: [...]"

And Turbine didnt heard the playerbase and keep the races in a 1hour CD, festivals were supposed to be great server wide party, now they're just a money grabber grind for ugly tablecloth mounts and horribad robes. I dont know why i'm still surprised...